Fault and Geodynamics Research Group, Department of Earth Science

Structural Geology
My research interests involve tectonics, forming such as thrusts in continental collision zones, or transform faults in continental margins. In the middle to lower crust, which is the deep part of the fault, rocks are plastically deformed in high differential stress conditions with the high-temperature and high-pressure environment. We can estimate the environment during deformation by analyzing the microstructures of plastically deformed rocks. Although the relationship between the deformation environment and the development process of microstructures have been gradually elucidated through rock deformation experiments simulating deformation in the crust, the whole aspect is still unknown. I conduct rock deformation experiments using a gas-medium apparatus to establish a method to estimate the environment during deformation from the microstructure of plastically deformed rocks (in particular, a stress gauge to estimate the stress during deformation from the microstructures).